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Speakers: Logitech vs Hercules

Noticed a few weeks back that my 2.1 speakers were 1.1 men down, ie. only one of the satellites now works, due to something gone wrong in the subwoofer (which I'm just itching to dismantle).

I'm not bitter, I bought these things as a humble lad of 16 who looked in the back of his PCZone and saw that the Hercules XPS210 were rated the best budget speakers, and they've lasted over 10 years with heavy use.

But I need new ones and, unless someone has a better option for 2.1 speakers in the £0-£50 price range I'm looking at either the:

The numbers and things associated with speakers mean little to me so I can't tell which is better (then again not being an audiophile means I won't mind if there is little difference between the two) so if anyone has experience of either speaker or knows of These Things then I'd appreciate some guidance. I'm leaning towards the Hercules even though they're more expensive and technically have a lower non-sale price (although I put little stock in that listing) just because my current speakers have been so great.

I got these recently after reading good reviews. They look really nice with the wooden casing and I can't fault the sound, though I'm not sure there's much difference in sound quality between speakers in that price range. Only problem is the really short leads connecting the satellites to the sub, I'm ok with the sub on my desk behind the monitors but I expect extension leads are cheap.

I do use the Logitech ones and I am pretty satisfied. But as I am not a very audiophile person and only own a small appartment I cannot say much about their quality in regards to other systems. For my useage their are absolutely fine.

I'm not trying to be cynical, just genuinely curious-is there a reason you don't use headphones? I had a 5.1 surround system for years. I still remember being blow away by how awesome it was when I first got it. I set it up nice too, concealed all the wires and everything. Eventually the center speaker started to fade though, and a buddy talked me into getting some headphones. I made the jump to like a $70 pair of 5.1 headphones, and I'm not sure I could ever go back.

"What were we talking about? Pegasuses, pegasii, that's horses with wings. This motherf*cker got a sword that talks to him. Motherf*cker live in places that don't exist, it comes with a map. My God."

I actually have a pair of Zalman 3D surround headphones I picked up a few years back and they are really good, excellent for things like FarCry 2. But my current setup is such that plugging them in is a massive pain and leaving them plugged in would disrupt playing music/movies. I'm also not a huge fan of the complete isolationism that headphones give and mainly play RPGs and strategy games where the sound may not matter (I tend to have music playing in the background if I'm playing a Total War or Infinite Engine game, for example).

Ideally I'll one day have a PC with Front/Rear/Center headphone ports on the front of the case so I can use the headphones easily when I want to. But until then some speakers are a better option. Also, wearing headphones for a long period of time gets kind of uncomfortable as I'm not used to it.

I appreciate music and game sound, but am happily ignorant about the finer points of audio things. I imagine learning about them would change this so I prefer not to, at least until I have the kind of funds to indulge myself in decent sound equipment.